BOOKS
61
China," Laughlin wrings his hands over some expurgations which as
editor he had to make. "The editor is more than sorry about this-he is
angry and ashamed-but he simply can't help it." He announces as "a
great piece of news" that Miller has found an American publisher.
"However you may feel about Miller's excessive frankness there is no
way to deny his magnificent command of language."
Miller's language is impressive, all right. When he starts dreaming
over his aperitif or taking his nocturnal prowls (his "obsessional walks")
through the streets of Paris, he is in top form. He confides how from
blind alleys, "thick clusters of whores leap out, like bats blinded by the
light. They get in my hair, my ears, my eyes." He regales us with "a
vault of obscene anguish saturated with angel-worms hanging from the
fallen womb of a sky." (Does he really mean angel-worms?) "Every
living man," he says, "is a museum that houses the horrors of the race.
. . . After all, why not a little horror?"
Certainly, a little horror is a grand thing. For exactly that reason,
and because Miller as a writer deserves to be taken .seriously, I hope that
a few of the more ornate horrors will be blue-penciled by that American
publisher.
For horror more deeply disquieting there are two stories by Del–
more Schwartz. I believe they are the best stories in the book. "In Dreams
Begin Responsibilities" achieves a frightening reality by the device of
describing an ordinary episode--the courtship of the author's mother
and father-as if it were being watched on an old-fashioned flickering
movie screen. This infra-reality is further intensified by the discovery
that the author is only dreaming about the movie. A similar nightmare
clarity pervades "The Commencement Day Address." An old man, in–
vited to speak at a college graduation, scandalizes the polite gathering
by blurting out horrid truths about the world, while he stands like a mad
Isaiah beneath darting lightning. Neither of these tricky and dramatic
stories seems fully formed, but they proclaim the originality and force
of Delmore Schwartz.
Among an entertaining litter of surrealist "Distillates," "Dreams,"
and "Letters," there is a yarn by Montagu O'Reilly, "The Depraved
Piano of the Nevski Prospect," which is as good as its title. It's about a
Russian butler with steel teeth who magnetizes piano keys so they won't
playa Chopin Etude. And it has a black-out ending that ought to please
everybody. While in this mood, I could have read more of Christopher
Young's "Dreams," if they had been on a par with his man who ate
camphor balls. I could also have read more of the Saroyan product,.
although the three here are only middling.
Of the poets, Robert Fitzgerald turns in the best work technically.
His sense of sound and rhythm is almost too perfect. Possibly in some
department of his being he needs to limber up. Of John Wheelwright
and William Carlos Williams it is easier to discern the large purpose than
the small meanings. The Cummings items, too, require the usual, decent
amount of decoding. For holiday relaxation the sonnets of Merrill Moore
are present in all their colloquial, casual abundance. Reading them,
